Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His latest novel, Whalefall, received a front-cover rave review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, and is a LA Times Book Prize Finalist. With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. His also cowrote The Living Dead with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards, and more.

Please join Daniel and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Jennifer Schaefer is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in: North American Review, Chicago Tribune, Barstow & Grand, Curbside Splendor, The Matador Review, Zouch Magazine, Akashic Books' flash fiction series, and Tortoise Books' anthology. She also received an Honorable Mention from Glimmer Train and a Special Mention from Fabula Press. She is currently seeking publication of two magical realism novels, one set in 1990s London, the other in a cultish Renaissance fair. She currently lives in Skokie with her British husband and their two daughters, two cats, and one very neurotic dog.

Please join Jennifer and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Sarah Kokernot’s writing has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The New York Times, Michigan Quarterly Review, Crazyhorse, Front Porch, West Branch, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and other publications. She is currently finishing her first novel. Originally from Kentucky, she lives outside of Chicago with her family. She works as an artist in residence at Northwestern University and as a consultant at StoryStudio, a creative writing center.

Please join Sarah and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Robert Vetter is a writer and performer, most recently performing with Little Miss Anthropes, a drag standup pageant, at The Lincoln Lodge. His work has been published by or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, The AutoEthnographer, The New Absurdist, The Museum of Americana Literary Review, and more.

Please join Robert and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Spring has sprung, and Chicago's favorite live lit reading series is too! Join us Tuesday, April 2 for the 146th edition of Tuesday Funk. The evening will feature readings by Sarah Kokernot, Daniel Kraus, Jennifer Schaefer, Lillian Stone, and Robert Vetter. Andrew Huff and Eden Robins cohost.

Admission to Tuesday Funk is always free, but you must be 21 to attend. Doors open at 7pm sharp (tables tend to fill up fast, so don't be late!) and the show will start at 7:30pm. Please RSVP on Facebook, and while you're there, go ahead like and follow us so you get our announcements in your news stream.

Hope to see you there!

Gina DeLuca is an essayist, satirist and cartoonist who has been performing in Chicago for the last 13 years. She recently graduated with her MFA in nonfiction writing from Washington University in St. Louis, and is an Assistant Editor for the humor column at The Rumpus. Her work has been published in Slate, The Rumpus, Points in Case and other publications. The Chicago Reader named her the featured artist of their 2020 Winter Arts issue. She has an upcoming solo essay show at Steppenwolf Theater on May 14th and 15th. You can read her work and see her cartoons by subscribing to her Substack, REJECTED.

Please join Gina and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

James Gordon is an award winning actor, author, and poet, as well as a champion Storyteller. James can be seen on episodes of Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, The G, Background Extras, Quick 2 Judge, and the theatrical productions Ides of March and God Do You Know Me.

Please join James and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Molia Dumbleton’s work has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Ecotone, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, and elsewhere; been awarded honors including Ireland's Seán Ó Faoláin International Story Prize, the Columbia Journal Winter Fiction Prize, and a Peter Taylor Fellowship from the Kenyon Review. She’s been selected for inclusion in Best Small Fictions, the Bath and Bridport Prize Anthologies, and the Wigleaf Top 50, and her in-progress short story collection, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was recently announced as the winner of the 2023 Granum Prize. Molly is a freelance writer, an assistant fiction editor at Split Lip Magazine, and a member of the curatorial board at Ragdale. She teaches Creative Writing at DePaul University.

Please join Molia and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is a recipient of a Meier Foundation Artist Achievement Award. He is on the faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.

Please join Michael and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.

Dmitry Samarov was born in Moscow, USSR in 1970. He immigrated to the US with his family in 1978. He got in trouble in 1st grade for doodling on his Lenin Red Star pin and hasn't stopped doodling since. After a false start at Parsons School of Design in New York, he graduated with a BFA in painting and printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1993. He has exhibited his work in all manner of bars, coffeeshops, libraries, and even the odd gallery (when he's really hard up.) He writes dog portraits and paints book reviews in Chicago, Illinois.

Please join Dmitry and our other amazing readers on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 in the upstairs bar at Hopleaf. Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30. It's free, and 21-and-over. Please RSVP on Facebook.